Oil in Gulf of Mexico Spells Disaster for Young Birds as Breeding Season Unfolds [Slide Show]

How will the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf impact the bird populations of the South Coast?

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SORA:

The sora is called a secretive marsh bird because it hangs out in dense, young marsh vegetation. Like related clapper rails and king rails, these birds are rarely heard and even more seldom seen.

Clapper and king rails in particular are high on ornithologists' concern list due to their limited distribution, lack of habitat and close association with brackish and saltwater marshes.....[
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SORA:

The sora is called a secretive marsh bird because it hangs out in dense, young marsh vegetation. Like related clapper rails and king rails, these birds are rarely heard and even more seldom seen.

Clapper and king rails in particular are high on ornithologists' concern list due to their limited distribution, lack of habitat and close association with brackish and saltwater marshes. Any oil washover from storms will be a hit to the marshes, and the marshes' ability to filter an oil spill is unknown.

SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER:

Migrating plovers and sandpipers spend the winter months farther south and are now coming through the Gulf in large numbers, en route to breeding grounds as far north as the Arctic. Along the way, they're foraging on mud flats and low beaches exposed at low tide.....[
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SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER:

Migrating plovers and sandpipers spend the winter months farther south and are now coming through the Gulf in large numbers, en route to breeding grounds as far north as the Arctic. Along the way, they're foraging on mud flats and low beaches exposed at low tide.

"We're talking about the potential for really high proportions of North American shorebirds being exposed to oil," Hunter says. "If this persists, they're going to be right back in it going south again in July and August."

PIPING PLOVER:

Plovers skitter along the glistening zone on beaches where the waves lap at the shore, foraging for insects and invertebrates. They are easily spotted, with their yellow legs and a distinct dark band around the neck.....[
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PIPING PLOVER:

Plovers skitter along the glistening zone on beaches where the waves lap at the shore, foraging for insects and invertebrates. They are easily spotted, with their yellow legs and a distinct dark band around the neck. Their beaches and sand flats are highly productive zones that will be vulnerable if spring storms or later-season hurricanes push oil past the protective boom.

ROYAL TERN:

Both royal terns and Sandwich terns, the latter named for the place they were described on the English coast, are on the front lines of birds experiencing the heaviest impacts from the Deepwater Horizons spill.....[
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ROYAL TERN:

Both royal terns and Sandwich terns, the latter named for the place they were described on the English coast, are on the front lines of birds experiencing the heaviest impacts from the Deepwater Horizons spill.

"They tend to forage out into the Gulf, where the oil is dominating the seascape," Hunter says.

MAGNIFICENT FRIGATE BIRD:

Once called man-o'-wars, the birds are kleptoparasites. They watch other birds fish, then harass them until they drop their catches.....[
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MAGNIFICENT FRIGATE BIRD:

Magnificent frigatebirds move into the Gulf for the warmer months.

Once called man-o'-wars, the birds are kleptoparasites. They watch other birds fish, then harass them until they drop their catches. Then they swoop down and swipe the fish from the surface of the water.

"We don't have the [same] kinds of numbers of those birds as on [the] Pacific Coast or farther up in [the] Atlantic, but we do have them, and more are going to be showing up in the coming weeks," says Chuck Hunter, an ornithologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Atlanta.

LAUGHING GULLS:

Easily identified by a red beak and a striking black head during the breeding season, laughing gulls are common along the Atlantic coast in North America and into northern South America. Their fishing lifestyle means that laughing gulls will be among the hardest hit if the oil spill encroaches on the beaches.....[
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LAUGHING GULLS:

Easily identified by a red beak and a striking black head during the breeding season, laughing gulls are common along the Atlantic coast in North America and into northern South America. Their fishing lifestyle means that laughing gulls will be among the hardest hit if the oil spill encroaches on the beaches. Because of their robust population numbers, conservationists are not worried about their status.

BROWN-ER PELICANS:

The southeastern United States supports about 90 percent of all the brown pelicans in the country, and 40 percent of those live on the Gulf Coast between Louisiana to the Florida panhandle. The birds were losing vital habitat to erosion on the east side of the Mississippi Delta when they got the double whammy of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.....[
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BROWN-ER PELICANS:

The southeastern United States supports about 90 percent of all the brown pelicans in the country, and 40 percent of those live on the Gulf Coast between Louisiana to the Florida panhandle. The birds were losing vital habitat to erosion on the east side of the Mississippi Delta when they got the double whammy of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. They've since been rebounding—partly because they've begun nesting on new beaches forming on the west side of the delta. Now, both sides are in the path of the spill.

Here wildlife rehabilitator Erica Miler—member of the Louisiana State Animal Response Team—cleanses a pelican of oil at Ft. Jackson in Louisiana on May 15.